


my soul to keep

by fuckitfireeverything



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: M/M, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-22
Updated: 2012-05-22
Packaged: 2017-11-05 19:26:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/410149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fuckitfireeverything/pseuds/fuckitfireeverything
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He knows what folder Agent Coulson fits into, has known this as instinctively as the drawing of a bowstring since they were assigned each other, but what he didn’t know was how well Agent Coulson fit against the contours of his body in the backseat of a car somewhere in Reykjavík, sacrificing any sense of decorum for a chance at sleeping warm.</p>
            </blockquote>





	my soul to keep

**Author's Note:**

> So this got a little darker than I expected... Warnings for minor character death and psychological torture, I guess?

Clint Barton doesn’t trust much, but if he trusts anything it’s his ability to figure people out. Provoking people, egging them on, it’s his way of gathering data, storing it away for the day when he finally decides he can make that call, to file agents and handlers and first dates into folders he’s spent years devising from past experience: people like Trickshot, who you can trust until they betray you; people like Barney, who you can trust until they leave you; people like Natasha, who you can’t trust at all.

It’s a flawed system, sure, but if Clint can’t trust his own mind, it’s not a mind worth having, and at least when those flaws come back to bite him, he can use that information, too. Variables and constants, like the direction of the wind and the weight of his bow in his hand. 

He knows what folder Agent Coulson fits into, has known this as instinctively as the drawing of a bowstring since they were assigned each other, but what he didn’t know was how well Agent Coulson fit against the contours of his body in the backseat of a car somewhere in Reykjavík, sacrificing any sense of decorum for a chance at sleeping warm.

He’s staring out the window, his view of the alley around them obscured by a thick, slick coating of icy rain, and he’s struggling to fight his eyes’ closing because he’d begrudgingly agreed to first watch, when Agent Coulson stirs against him. Clint wouldn’t give it any thought, except he glances down and Coulson’s face is contorted, pained like he’s just been stabbed or shot and Clint’s can’t help but look frantically around for any sign of blood until Coulson all but screams something — a terrified, desperate name, _Alana._

Clint shakes him awake hesitantly, and Coulson sits up, sweating despite the temperature and scans the car with frightened eyes for a moment before remembering where he is. 

“You were screaming,” Clint tell him, and he swallows and nods and mumbles some apology, out of breath. Clint nearly asks, “Who is Alana?” but Coulson is already scooting towards the other side of the seat and resting his head on the window, closing his eyes to go back to sleep.

//

Coulson’s personnel files at SHIELD are technically above Clint’s security clearance. Fortunately for Clint, the other thing they’re above is an empty office with a terribly convenient air vent, so after signing out for the day, he hoists himself up into the ducts and crawls out three minutes later into a passcode locked room he really shouldn’t be in. 

Coulson’s file is impeccably neat, much like Coulson. Stacked, stapled sitreps and debrief forms Clint has never seen before, much less filled out line the folder in dated order, a thorough and complete outline of Coulson’s nine years at SHIELD. He skips straight to the recruitment files, reads Coulson’s bio — mostly things he’s already gathered. Born in a suburb of Augusta, Maine; former Army Ranger; history major at UMaine, graduated Phi Beta Kappa. He scans the information hastily before falling on “Family members: Anne Healy, mother. Patrick Coulson, father. Alana Healy, sister.” There is a set of thin red letters marked next to Alana’s name. _Deceased._

He contemplates slipping the file under his shirt before leaving, but this alone already feels like some sort of invasion, and so he carefully straightens the papers in the file and puts it back.

//

Eight months later, five dead coworkers later, two bottles of whiskey later, one messy instance of Coulson’s lips pressing into Clint’s later, and Clint is finding out other places Coulson fits in his life. In the spaces between debriefings and training, in the gaps between his ragged breathing late at night, in the quietest corner of the Thai place on 47th street, and he may have to reconsider his initial evaluation, because Coulson doesn’t seem to be leaving anytime soon. 

The first full night they spend together, Clint wakes at 5 to Coulson sitting on the edge of the bed, shaking, staring at his trembling hands. Clint wraps his arms around him until the shaking subsides, but doesn’t ask what happened, doesn’t need to, because what woke Clint up in the first place was a voice muttering, _Alana._

This happens twelve times over the course of the next few months — months filled with overnight missions and stays in the medbay and sleepless nights — to the point where Clint starts to wonder if maybe this happens every time Coulson sleeps. 

One night, Clint shakes Coulson awake again like he did the first time.

“Phil,” he whispers. “Phil, wake up.”

Coulson starts awake and Clint sees that his eyes are wet, places a comforting hand on his back.

“Hey, it’s okay, it was a dream.”

“No,” Coulson mumbles, head in his hands. “It was a memory.”

//

Fury doesn’t bat his eye when Clint storms into his office one day to tell him, fuck SHIELD’s fraternization policies, he’ll quit SHIELD if he has to and he’s tired of being so damn secretive about his relationship. Because the body counts are rising and he’s starting to realize that Phil fits into certain parts of his life like no one else ever could and there’s no way he’s giving that up for a job or a mission or a paycheck.

Fury isn’t surprised. He just sighs, rubs the bridge of his nose, and asks, “Has he told you about the October 27th incident?”

Clint shakes his head, and Fury must send Phil some kind of relationship-related paperwork because that night Phil sits Clint down, unusually stiff and exhausted, a strained look in his eyes, and tells him everything.

“I’d been working for SHIELD for a year, working closely with a few senior agents, following some intel we’d gotten on a group of bio-terrorists in Belgrade,” he sighs, tracing lines on the table with a butter knife. “I was pretty new to all this stuff, I guess. Careless. Got a lead and rushed in when I shouldn’t have, didn’t think before attempting to infiltrate. I was... compromised. 

“They got my sister. My kid sister, Alana, she was only eleven. They wanted coordinates for one of the labs we were working with at the time, wanted intel on our research, wanted amnesty. SHIELD agents don’t negotiate. So they tested out their newest chemical weapon on her. A fear serum, to make people see what they fear the most. And they tied a gas mask to my face and made me sit next to her while they did it. 

“I couldn’t do anything. I tried giving her my gas mask, but it was too late. I tried comforting her, holding her, promising I’d get her out of there, but it was like she couldn’t see me. She was screaming and crying and tearing at her hair and skin. It went on for hours. And finally, she made eye contact with me, her whole body shaking. She looked up at me and she said, ‘Phil?’ God, how her voice broke when she said it... ‘Phil, make it stop. Please,’ and I said ‘I can’t, Alana. It’s not real, this isn’t really happening,’ and she grabbed my hand and told me, ‘I just want to go to sleep, Phil...’

“The guards kicked me a gun through the door,” he continues, his hands starting to shake uncontrollably. He bites his lip, and Clint leans forward, taking his hand. 

Phil finally looks up and laughs, dryly, no humor behind it at all. “You know, the entire ride back, on the jet, I was convinced I was the one who had been dosed with the serum, that watching my little sister die, watching my finger pull the trigger, was my worst fear and I was being forced to imagine it. It was the only thing that made sense. It made too much sense. God, I wish I’d been right.”

Clint doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t know if there’s anything to say, so he goes to Phil and wraps him in his arms, lets him cry. He holds him and sorts this new information, filing it away with the sound of Phil’s voice over the coms or the way Phil takes his coffee or the specific type of pen Phil prefers, and somewhere in his mind he realizes he needs a new folder. A folder for people like Phil, who you can trust unconditionally.


End file.
